CANADA NOT PRODUCING ENOUGH MEAT.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LX, Issue 143838, 12 July 1912, Page 4

CANADA NOT PRODUCING ENOUGH MEAT.

Judging by the tenor of the addresses at the recent convention in Canada (says the Canadian correspondent of the Pastoralists’ Review), the growing of meat-producing animals is not in the flourishing condition it should bo in a country such as ours, with climate, soil nndothor conditions favourable to animal husbandry. The present state of the beef, .cattle and.sheep industries.is most grave,- at least from-the oonsum--er’s point of view. Canada has a rapid-ly-increasing population, tho increase being largely Urban. The demand for meat' for the Home market increases yearly, but the supply is not keeping pace.with the , demand. Sixty-five per cent, of the mutton consumed in AVestern Canada comes from Australia or New Zealand, and only 25 per cent, of the .pork consumed in British Columbia and Alberta is grown within the . boundaries, of those twb provinces. This seems, an extraordinary state of affairs, especially in view of the fact .that millions of bushels of grain have lain outdoors un- . marketed arid even unthreshed alb through tho winter in the prairie provinces; A considerable proportion of the crop of 1911 was fit only for slock feed, and there was no stock to which it could be fed. The stockman of the western States would have been glad to got this damaged grain to meet a shortage of feed in that country, , but the failure of Canada to ratify the reciprocity pact 'with the United States shut off a profitable market in that .direction. As may; be imagined,, the', western farmers are very bitter in. their criticism of the eastern manufacturers, to whoso efforts the defeat of reciprocity was undoubtedly due. There car. bo no doubt that from every point of view it it advisable to produce our meats' on oil- own Canadian faims. But in the Maritime provinces the dairy, cow is pushing to the tore, and during the past few years the h§ef herds have barely held their own, while the sheep, industry is not thriving. Even Ontario made aji increase in beef cattle in ten years of only 50,000 head, while there are now over 800,000 fewer sheep in .the province than in 1906. In the western provinces wheat has driven the rancher out of'business,- and all the average farmer seems to. think about is his cereal crop. The west is short of cattle, having 10.000,000 less than a decade ago, apd the cattle of the future must of necessity be raised on the farms now devoted almost entirely to grain-growing. Alberta has reached ■that low ebb of beef production so' characteristic of countries changing from ranching to grain-growing. Quebec reports beef cattle almost entirely crowded out by the rapid advance of dairying, and British Columbia continues to be a large consumer rather than producer of live stock products. Even the hog industry, especially in the west, is at tho mercy of the packers, and is not in the most progressive condition."